Vito Fossella: “Mr. Speaker, this House is about to vote on a resolution that I believe will simply allow Members in this House to send…”

“Mr. Speaker, this House is about to vote on a resolution that I believe will simply allow Members in this House to send a clear and convincing signal to terrorists around this Nation, around this world contemplating acts of terrorism, that the United States has a zero tolerance policy towards terrorists. The background for this is the group known as the FALN, a terrorist organization that wreaked havoc across this country in the 1970s and 1980s, and claimed responsibility for 130 bombings, killing innocent people, maiming innocent people across this country from New York to Chicago. Too many families were left without fathers. Too many families were left without husbands. Too many communities were left without, innocent people who died as a result of FALN activities. Mr. Speaker, those people are rightfully convicted and sentenced to prison, and now the White House wants to release some of these people back into society. This is the absolutely wrong signal we could be sending to the American people, absolutely wrong to terrorists contemplating acts of violence. And in the goodness of the Members here, can we at least vindicate the memory of the Berger family, of Officers Richard Pascarella who lost his eye, or Rocco Pastorella who lost a leg as a result of FALN activities? We should be sending a convincing signal that there is no place in American society for all of this.”